A conventional in-vehicle camera that monitors the conditions ahead of the vehicle has a structure where a casing is mounted to a ceiling of the vehicle, the casing has an opening in a surface facing the windshield, and the camera is disposed inside the casing.
Since the casing of the in-vehicle camera has the opening in the surface facing the windshield, a hood is provided for preventing so-called background reflections, a phenomenon where the light from the inside of the vehicle is reflected by the inner surface of the windshield thereby entering the camera.
The hood has a structure extending from a front end portion, facing the windshield, of a lower portion of the casing toward the windshield to cover a gap. Inclination of the windshield is different according to type of vehicles, and as a result the length of the gap is also different. Accordingly, the hood has a structure where the length of the extension can be changed (PTL1).
The in-vehicle camera having the above-described structure, however, needs a device for changing the extension length of the hood. Also, the camera has to have a structure where the hood slides. Because of these, the camera grows in size.
Accordingly, recently, the following structure is adopted. In the structure, a bracket is attached to the windshield, an in-vehicle camera body, which is the casing accommodating the camera, is fixed by the bracket under it.
The in-vehicle camera having such a structure also needs the hood. The hood prevents light from entering from the outside into a space including at least a defined space defined by an angle of field of the lens, in a space between the lens provided in the in-vehicle camera body and the windshield.
However, the in-vehicle camera having such a structure also has a problem where the length of the hood is large especially when the inclination angle of the windshield is large.
Further, the in-vehicle camera having such a structure also has another problem where there is a need for securing a large area of a surface, which is attached to the windshield, of the bracket, in view of preventing the in-vehicle camera from dropping from the windshield.
PTL 1 Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2010-42703